Penelope Crumb (13 page)

This is going great is what my brains are telling me, until I look at Mom and see her red blotches. This whole time she’s been doing a lot of non-talking. I plant myself right in front of her so she won’t have to find the words. Then I poke her with my finger, which makes her mouth open. “Uh, how have you been, Felix?” is what finally comes out.

“All right,” he says.

“Good,” Mom says.

Then there’s a lot more non-talking. Good gravy. They are really awful at this. So I say, “Fine. I’ll do it. Mom, you tell Grandpa Felix that he is still part of our family.”

“Penelope,” she says.

“And Grandpa Felix, you tell Mom that you’re sorry for leaving me at the hospital and for acting like you were Graveyard Dead, even though you were not.”

Grandpa Felix clears his throat.

“Penelope,” says Mom. “It’s not that simple.”

“I know,” I say, “it’s because you don’t have words. But you don’t
need
words.” I spread the arms of my coat. “Because I’ve got all these pictures. We’re all together. Right here.”

“I think I’d better be going,” says Grandpa Felix.

“No, don’t!” I grab his arm with both hands.

Mom grabs my coat at the elbow. “Don’t do this, Penelope. Come on, we’ve got to get going, too.” But I hang on to Grandpa Felix, hang on for dear life. Because if I let go, everything will go with it. “I’m not letting go!”

“Mom!” says Terrible.

But Mom isn’t letting go either, and so we’re both holding on, holding on tight for I don’t know
what. But I guess no matter how much you hold on sometimes, you can’t stop people from leaving.

“I’m not letting go!” I yell again, pulling harder on Grandpa Felix’s arm, and people around us are starting to stare and whisper, but I don’t care. I get tossed around inside the grandpa-size coat as I hold on and pull, and before I can stop it, my arms are out of the sleeves and I’m out of the coat and knocking into Terrible. He catches me and keeps me from falling.

Mom and Grandpa Felix are still pulling on the coat even though I’m not in it. I reach out to grab the coat again, but before I can get hold of it, there’s a loud ripping sound that stops me. When I turn to look, Mom is holding on to half of my dad’s picture. The rest of his face is still glued to the coat, which is now in Grandpa Felix’s hands.

And I think my heart stops beating for real.

O
n my walk to school, I stare up at the gray clouds. It makes me feel a little better to see them there. Like they understand and are just waiting to scatter when things decide to go right.

I leave my toolbox at home for the first time since I found it, on account of the fact that when you’ve lost everything, there’s nothing left to fix. Graveyard-Dead dad. Lost, found, and lost again grandpa. Lost nose powers. Lost coat-of-arms coat that is somewhere with the lost, found, and lost again grandpa. Lost chance of coat of arms
being picked for the Portwaller-in-Bloom Spring Festival and because of that, lost chance of being a not-dead famous artist like Leonardo.

Gray clouds. Gray clouds. Gray clouds.

“Okay, everyone,” says Miss Stunkel. “Today is the big day. Each of you will present your coat of arms to the class. I’ve selected a few teachers to act as the judges. They will look them all over after school and decide which one will be chosen for display at the Portwaller-in-Bloom Spring Festival. Now, who would like to go first?”

I keep my eyeballs on my desk and trace over “Math is stupid” with my finger.

“Penelope?” says Miss Stunkel. “Let’s see yours.”

“I don’t have one,” I say, without looking up.

Patsy Cline gasps and Miss Stunkel says, “What do you mean you don’t have one? I thought you said yours was already finished.”

“It was. But I lost it in battle,” I tell her.

Miss Stunkel tells me she’s very disappointed in
me, and she makes a big deal out of the
very
. She also says to see her after school, which I know means another note home. While she tells me all this I’m pretty sure I see two more wrinkles pop up on her forehead.

Then she calls on Angus Meeker to show off his coat of arms. His coat of arms has macaroni glued all over it, on account of the fact that he says his dad works at an Italian restaurant. He’s also got drawings of cars and trucks on it, because his stepmom fixes cars. And a palm tree for his real mom who he doesn’t see very much because she lives in Florida. Truth be told, I guess I didn’t know very much about awful Angus Meeker. And after he’s done, awful Angus Meeker doesn’t seem as awful as I thought.

The rest of the class show off their coats of arms, but none of them are actual coats like mine.

After school, Miss Stunkel hands me a note for my mom. I don’t have to read it to know what it says:

I tuck the note in my back pocket and head for home. Angus Meeker gets to the front door of school just when I do. “Why didn’t you do a coat of arms?” he asks me.

“I did. I just don’t have it anymore.” I push open the door, and he walks alongside me.

“Too bad,” he says.

“Humph,” I say and then nothing else.

“No,” he says, “I mean, I bet it was good. You’re kind of the best at art.”

I feel my face go red. After a while I say, “I liked your macaroni. Yours is the one that should win.” And that is true blue.

Climbing the stairs to our apartment is hard
work. Miss Stunkel’s note is as heavy as a brick in my pocket. As soon as I get inside, I slam the door behind me because I am an excellent slammer.

“Penelope!” calls Mom from the kitchen.

“What!” I yell. Because my nose is tingly and the gray clouds are still out there.

“Come here, please,” she says.

“What for?” I say, seeing if I can make my footsteps as small as grasshoppers.

“Penelope Rae!” (Clogged arteries.)

My word. I make my footsteps bigger like medium-size grasshoppers. When I get to the kitchen, Mom and Terrible are waiting for me.

I hand over Miss Stunkel’s note. “Oh dear,” Mom says. Then without opening the note, she lays the envelope on the counter. “We’re making dinner, and we need you to set the table.”

“Fine,” I say, even though it really isn’t.

I grab three plates from the cupboard, and then Mom says, “Make it four.”

“Fine,” I say again. And the day is so gray that I don’t even ask who number four is.

Mom pinches my chin gently. “By the way, how’s your nose? The swelling looks better.”

“Okay,” I say, with a shrug. I sniff at Terrible and cough a little at the smell of his cologne. “I can smell some things now.” He pushes me away. “But I still don’t have any nose powers.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” says Mom.

“What do you mean?”

There’s a knock at our door then. “Your nose might have more power than you think,” says Mom.

“What do you mean?” I look from Mom to Terrible.

He shrugs and then says, “Get the door, genius, and maybe you’ll find out.”

“Terrence,” says Mom.

“What? I called her
genius
, not
dorkus
or anything,” he says. “Right, genius?”

“Whatever you say, alien.” And then I race down the hall before he can catch me. I swing open our door, and standing right there, right in front of me is Grandpa Felix. “Oooooooh-klahoma!” I say when I see him. “What are you doing here?”

Grandpa Felix clears his throat. “I believe I was invited.”

“You were?”

Then Grandpa Felix pulls my coat of arms from behind his back and holds it out to me. All of the pictures are there, except for the one of my dad. His picture is just gone, with only a green square where he used to be. “This belongs to you now.”

I slip the coat on and wrap my arms around me. Mom is beside me then with her drawing pad under her arm and her face full of red blotches. She flips open her drawing pad and tears out a piece of paper. This time it’s not a drawing of a creepy inside. It’s a drawing of my dad. “I was going to glue on another picture of him,” she says. “To make your coat like it was. But then I started sketching.”

I swallow. And take the picture with both hands. “It looks just like him.” I smile at her and Grandpa.

He smooths his shirt, which I notice is a clean one. He scratches his whiskers and then shifts
from one foot to the other. “Are we going to stand around like this all night?”

“Come on in, Felix,” she says. “Dinner will be ready soon.”

Grandpa Felix nods and squeezes by me, stepping inside our apartment. “How’s the nose?”

I don’t know how long I’ve been holding my breath, but I let it all out in a
whoosh
. “Still big,” I say.

He laughs. “Good thing.”

And then when I look at my nose on his face, all at once I know what my nose powers are. And they are almost as good as being a war hero. I found Grandpa Felix, all because of my big nose. That’s why he’s here. “I brought you back from being Graveyard Dead,” I tell him.

Then he puts both hands over his heart and takes a long sniff of the air. “I believe you did, little darling. I believe you did.”

I
DIDN’T KNOW
I
HAD
a big nose until I was twelve, when an uncle and cousin pointed it out to me during Thanksgiving dinner. (Thank you, Big Paul and Joey, for that one.) I wish I could say that I reacted to the news with as much sense of pride as Penelope, but at twelve, I didn’t have Penelope’s unique view of the world or appreciation for such things. Most days, I still don’t. But I’m working on it.

For my big nose and all that comes with it, I would like to thank my grandfather, Albert Beck. His nose is a curse and a blessing. Without it, though, I wouldn’t have been inspired to write this book and discover the wondrous nature of Penelope Crumb.

Thank you to the many people who read earlier
versions of this book, including Mary Quattlebaum, and my advisers and faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts, in particular, Kathi Appelt, Jane Kurtz, Uma Krishnaswami, Tim Wynne-Jones, Marion Dane Bauer, and Rita Williams-Garcia. Your insight and encouragement helped me to keep writing until I found the story I wanted to tell. Thank you also to my classmates and friends who read early drafts, especially Annemarie O’Brien, Jess Leader, Allyson Valentine Schrier, Gene Brenek, Micol Ostow, Gwenda Bond, Debbie Gonzalez, Jandy Nelson, and Carol Lynch Williams. In addition, I’d like to thank Alisha Niehaus for her thoughtful critique, which helped me realize that Penelope Crumb is indeed the sort of girl who would embrace a nose the size of a mountain.

Many thanks to a most amazing agent, Sarah Davies, at Greenhouse Literary Agency, for your patience and kindness. Thank you for believing in me and pushing me to dig deeper. And to Jill
Santopolo, my editor, thank you for your guidance and knowledge, and for shepherding Penelope and me through this wonderful journey.

Thank you, also, to my family, for all of your support and love.

SHAWN K. STOUT
has held many jobs, including ice cream scooper, dog treat baker, magazine editor, and waitress. She also holds the job of mother to her baby daughter, Opal. Shawn is the author of Fiona Finkelstein, Big-Time Ballerina!! and Fiona Finkelstein Meets Her Match!! She received her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her family and two dogs named Munch and Laverne in Frederick, Maryland.

You can visit Shawn K. Stout at